The case for dumbphones
How to turn off your smartphone and start recovering your attention
I recently bought a dumbphone and switched off my work and personal iPhones for good. My current phone, a Punkt MP02, allows for calls, SMS, basic calendar, notes, hotspot, and clock functions like alarm, timer, and stopwatch. That’s it. Period. Punkt.
Why doing that?
Because your capacity to focus determines what you can achieve in the long run, concentrating for long periods enables more creative work, doing and creating more, and ultimately having a happier life¹. On the other hand, being constantly distracted and hooked to your phone destroy your attention and capacity to concentrate. Before smartphones existed, during my time at university, I could sit to study for three or four hours straight with no problem. Today, it will be a remarkably productive day if I get one hour uninterrupted.
Smartphones are very convenient, for sure. But they come with a cost. To me, that cost is too high. Being able to log in to my bank account, check the weather forecast, chat with friends, access the latest news at any time, or even take pictures is not worth giving up my capacity to concentrate, create, and ultimately be happy. It is a bold statement, but the stakes are high.
Although I must admit that what triggered this change was having my first son: I don’t want him to grow up thinking being endlessly attached to a screen is normal at all. It is not. Moreover, fragmented attention strongly limits the quality of your interactions with your close ones. In addition, becoming a father made me highly mindful of my time: the kid already demands a lot of time; wasting the rest on a screen means not doing anything I truly want.
How to switch?
I was holding the decision for some time, convinced it was impossible to turn off a smartphone completely. There are so many “critical” apps you cannot live without anymore that it seems a daunting undertaking. Although it is true that I still need to turn on my iPhone to do specific tasks like authenticating my brokerage account, I managed to reduce those operations to 5 minutes per month at a maximum. Actually, with a bit of analysis, it is easy to realize we are not prisoners of technology. Indeed we can benefit from technology while being in control: this is not about becoming an ascetic and isolated outcast but about making technology work for you and not the opposite.
A way to plan an alternative to smartphones is to list the apps you use the most and ask yourself the following: do I absolutely need this functionality? And if yes, do I have an alternative? Based on those questions, I could classify apps into pretty much three groups:
- Not needed; it only offers shallow entertainment and infinite scrolling: YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. Just delete them.
- It offers valuable functionalities but has a desktop equivalent: Email, WhatsApp, Garmin, etc. Use the desktop equivalent only.
- It is required to perform specific unusual tasks without an alternative: some banks and two-step authentication apps, in my case. Plan how often you need to use these apps. Most likely, you can limit them to short monthly usage. The rest of the time, keep your smartphone out of sight and switched off.
Finally, after that analysis, I realized I could live my day-to-day without carrying my iPhone everywhere. True, there are activities I still need the smartphone for, but I can limit those to just a few minutes per month. Also, there are valuable applications that run on desktop devices, which is excellent since desktop applications call for more intentional and thoughtful use: i.e., you sit at your desk to use them because you have a good reason for it, not because it is the easiest thing to do at any given moment. Being intentional is the key to having a healthy relationship with technology and being in control of it. Without a clear intention to use digital technologies, you risk being drawn into shallow and endless mental wandering.
Minimalist vs. cheap phones, how to choose?
Based on the intention of the manufacturer, we can classify dumbphones into two main types:
- Minimalistic phones: devices specifically designed to minimize distractions and with very few but intentionally selected features. Examples are Punkt, LightPhone, or Mudita, with prices of around 300 USD.
- Cheap simple phones: where the manufacturer tries to squeeze as many features as possible while keeping a low price and a long battery life, e.g., Nokia and the like. Those range from 20 USD to 100 USD.
The final set of functionalities highly overlaps among those two types of devices, and both phones will drastically reduce distractions. However, the intention behind the design can make a difference: after all your efforts to become digitally decluttered, why risking becoming hooked to the snake game?
Are minimalistic phones expensive?
Another point that made me doubt changing was the price of minimalistic phones. 300 USD for a phone that only allows for calls and SMS seems like a lot of money. However, let’s do the following math: Take how much money you make per hour and how many hours per day you spend on your phone. Now multiply those two numbers, and you will get how much “money” you spend daily on your phone. Now divide 300 USD by that number, and you will get in how many days you will recover your 300 USD investment.
If you make 25 USD an hour and spend 2 hours daily on your smartphone, in less than a week, you have recovered your 300 USD. Not so bad.
Is that all it takes?
Unfortunately not. Although not easy at all, breaking free from your smartphone does not mean you will recover your best concentration just the day after. However, we take our phones with us literally everywhere, so reducing exposure to them is certainly the most significant step we can take in that direction. Being undistracted when outdoors with friends, cooking, dining with your close ones, or just working on enjoyable projects means being present in your life. It will also make you more mindful and alert about getting distracted, and incremental improvements will become much easier to implement afterward.
Stay focused, and thank you for reading.
References
[1] Will focus make you happier? Edward Hallowell, Harvard Business Review.
